president clinton had decided that he was going to try to work with the republicans. he brought in a new chief of staff by the name of erskine bowles, and in that has popped up again. and he immediately called me and said to my here to work with you and that enabled us to do a lot of things that i don't think the republicans today can get done with this obama white house. lou: and are you and i in agreement that the republicans are not in nearly sufficiently strong position, not with the lack of talent, there are some questions about that, but because of the lack f power of the leaders in the house and the role of the house in this negotiation. >> i am not prepared to ay that. i go up to the capitol every week and meet with the republican leaders and listen to them as they talked very openly about what their views are and what they're trying to get done. and i can tell you that they are a lot stronger than they have been presented by the conservative media. the interesting thing about the speaker is to make you look carefully at his proposals, he is never implying tha